From what I have seen with BMW’s marketing machine since the closure of JCW Garages, MINI dealerships still have little if any understanding of their Works customers. Who before at least had the opportunity to soak up all the wonderful heritage as well as talk to people that were passionate about their MINI Cooper’s.

Nice rundown on the logic of DSC on road cars. The great advantage and disadvantage of the front-wheel drive car – trailing throttle oversteer – is great when you’re on a track, with maybe some run-off space when – and I mean when, not if – you need some ass-saving, but street driving is a whole different environment. In my mis-spent youth, I’ve sat shotgun on a sideways Mini on an on-ramp all the way onto the freeway once, and even tho the driver was very, very good, and he kept his foot in it all the way around, it wasn’t an experience I’d care to duplicate on public roads, and not many could.

The original Mini was very much over-engineered, which is one reason it was able to survive pretty much unchanged for so long, and Cooper, and other tuners, pushing for a larger performance envelope, made others take a good look at improving the average road car. MINI is now, as then, looked at by most buyers as a cutting edge car, with the various traction and braking controls soon to be viewed as essential safety factors that, yes, you’re right, IMHO, will be mandated rather than optional.

Cooper changed the face of modern racing cars by championing the mid-engined design, and were so revolutionary, the effects are still felt today. Cooper changed the Mini from a great small car design into a revolutionary spots sedan, and yup, the effects are also felt to this day. The new MINI has some big boots to fill, but it’s gotten a helluva start – the bar has been moved up for the other small cars, and with the safety aspects of DSC, ABS, and the like on MINIs, the other guys will have to step up and meet that level of excellence. Cooper’s little tweaks have come a long way.

     BCNU,
   Rob in Dago

(If it ever shows up, this comment can be deleted…)

I think you’re seriously underestimating how important DSC is. I too HATE ASC+T, and what it does… and in dry weather, I often turn the system off as well, just so my power doesn’t get cut when I’m “getting on it”. And I too try to practice threshhold braking – it’s definitely superior to ABS… although I think ABS is a very good technology for the “average” driver who doesn’t know any better.

However, I don’t care how talented of a driver you are, DSC can do things to save your butt that you can’t even do yourself… case in point, are YOU able to cause only one wheel to brake? Of course not.

In bad weather (rain or snow), and making turns or curves, if you start to slip, DSC is EXTREMELY helpful at keeping you on track. So much so that other companies are releasing their own systems (different names, exact same technology) on their cars. I think that these systems are going to be standard equipment (maybe even government-mandated) before too long. Yaw control is far too valuable of a technology to be ignored in bad weather conditions.

I wish DSC was available without the ASC+T functions, because that to me is the ideal compromise for most driving. As it stands, I won’t recommend anyone not choosing the DSC option on their car. They give you a switch to turn it off, so it’s silly not to have it for those days when you might run into conditions that could be a little worse than you realize.

You can’t avoid getting ASC+T in an MCS, but you CAN choose to get the “good stuff”, which are the additional DSC functions. And I don’t fault MINI for that piece of the sport package when it comes to the JCW requirements.

Cheer up people, history goes on :-)

I’m with you, Rob. I really like the non-works logo they’ve got on their site. I’d much rather have that too.

There’s a ton of history there, outside of the Mini/MINI world and it’s super-sad to see that go.

Great post man, guess we’ll see where the post-o-the-month shakes out. ;-)

We can hope that this is the case vs the alternative.